Custom watch faces finally arrive on Android Wear

Custom watch faces are one of the biggest draws of Android Wear but up to this point, developers have been on their own (undocumented APIs) when it comes to creating new ones. That’s led to some pretty crummy creations but fortunately, Google's latest Android Wear update includes an official watch face API.

The search giant has also created a new section in the Play Store specifically for watch faces so it’ll be easy for Android Wear users to find the dozens of new watch faces available for download.

What you’ll find there will vary wildly from watch faces featuring Pac-Man and Plants vs. Zombies to classier options from Rebecca Minkof and Hugh Turvey. Pricing varies depending on watch face with several being offered free of charge.

Android Wear in general also gets several new features and abilities. For example, users can now quickly bring back a card that they accidentally dismissed. Tapping on the watch face now brings up a recently used actions list and you can swipe down from the top of the screen to access various settings.

A new Theater Mode lets you keep the screen off and mute vibrations when in a dark room. Conversely, Sunlight Mode boosts the screen’s brightness to its maximum value to assist viewing in brightly-lit environments.

Keeping tabs on the OS is now easier than ever as users can block notifications from any app directly from the watch. What’s more, the Android Wear app now lets you see an app’s battery and storage usage to help hunt down overbearing apps.

Updates are rolling out as of writing although it may take up to a week for it to hit every device.